Chapter 188: The King of Hell Passes By! There Is No Way for the True God!
"What did you say?" The captain's face changed instantly. He pushed the steering wheel, but he couldn't feel any force on it. It felt light and fluttery.
"Oh no! There's a gap!" The second pilot also realized the seriousness of the problem.
In a deep stall, the airflow that originally adhered to the wing surface has been separated from the wing surface over a large area, and there is only turbulent airflow on the control surface that is difficult to generate lift. Due to the separation of airflow, the pilot cannot feel the correct stick force when manipulating the wing surface.
The reason why the rod force exists is because of the aerodynamic load formed by the airflow on the rudder surface. Now, the aerodynamic load has disappeared, which shows how serious the airflow separation is.
Under such conditions, in extreme cases, the wing surface may even lose the ability to generate lift.
"Why is the stall so bad, and the stick shaker hasn't activated? And why hasn't the plane automatically corrected itself?" The second captain screamed, his eyes filled with fear. The control wheel of the plane was already in neutral, and with such severe airflow separation, the stall stick shaker warning should have sounded long ago.
The vibration of the control wheel just now was not the aircraft's stall stick shaker warning, but the turbulence on the surface of the control surface due to airflow separation was constantly impacting the control surface, and the vibration of the control surface was fed back to the control wheel.
It is for this reason that the vibration on the steering wheel is fine but not strong, which is quite different from the performance of the stall stick shake warning.
Stalling will cause stick shake, which is almost something that pilots have in their genes. But the situation now is almost imaginable to the second captain, that is, in a deep stall, the plane began to fall straight down. This degree of stall is almost never encountered in actual flights, and it is difficult to create it even artificially.
Modern large passenger aircraft are actually quite advanced, and their stability is extremely strong. In fact, even in a severe stall, if there is no intervention from other factors, a large passenger aircraft will slowly recover from the stall by itself, but the loss of altitude and time consumed will be much greater than human intervention.
Therefore, even if the pilot cannot truly control the aircraft due to air flow separation, in fact, according to common sense, the aircraft should slowly and automatically correct itself.
It was for this reason that the second captain was not so nervous at first at such a high altitude. In flight, altitude is everything, and altitude can solve many problems.
But in fact, the plane has been falling for a while since then, but there is no sign of recovery. This is very strange.
"The aircraft is now severely iced, and the stall speed has greatly increased." Xu Cang shouted: "In the case of severe ice accumulation, the stall stick shaker warning system of the aircraft may not be able to detect the stall."
"Too fast, too fast, how can the plane freeze so fast?" Previously, it would take no more than two minutes from the time the wing and pod anti-icing switches were turned off to the time the plane began to stall. In those two minutes, the accumulated ice on the plane caused the plane to lose a lot of lift, causing it to stall early. The captain in charge was in a state of panic at the moment. He had never encountered such an exaggerated stall before: "Xu Cang, what should we do?"
Recovering from a stall is a basic skill for any pilot. Of course, the recovery procedure is not complicated. Since the essence of a stall is that the aircraft's angle of attack is greater than the critical angle of attack, it is sufficient to reduce the aircraft's angle of attack manually.
The most common and direct way to reduce the aircraft's angle of attack is to push the stick up, so in most stall situations, the first action in the recovery procedure is to push the stick up.
However, the current situation is that due to the severe separation of airflow, the pitch operation on the control wheel can indeed be reflected in the elevator. However, the change of the elevator cannot generate enough torque to control the pitch of the aircraft without the effect of the airflow, which is the most fatal.
"No matter how serious the stall is, it won't cause such severe airflow separation. It must be caused by ice accumulation. Therefore, to solve the stall problem, we must first solve the ice accumulation problem." Xu Cang's mind was still clear at this time.
A deep stall will indeed cause airflow separation on the control surfaces, but now at only a minus five degree attitude, the control surface effect of the elevator almost disappears, which is obviously abnormal.
Theoretically, even in a vertical fall, the elevator can generate corresponding torque, but this torque is extremely limited.
Such an extreme situation occurred under conditions that obviously would not produce complete airflow separation. There can only be one explanation, that is, a large amount of ice has accumulated on the elevator, and the thickness of the ice has reached a level sufficient to change the surface structure of the elevator.
Under normal circumstances, the elevator will not lose its control surface effect unless there have been major changes in the fluid structure of the elevator control surface.
Therefore, don't think about solving the stall problem in one step, because there is still the problem of ice accumulation ahead, which is the root cause of everything.
However, the only thing to be thankful for was that their altitude was high enough. The altitude of 30,000 feet provided Xu Cang with a precious opportunity to correct everything. If the altitude was only 10,000 feet when the accident happened, Xu Cang could basically take his hands off the steering wheel and wait for death!
"Should we activate wing anti-icing?" The second captain was not so opposed to activating wing anti-icing at this time. He could see that ice accumulation had become a top priority. He was even prepared for the outcome of active decompression: "Can the plane's current descent speed keep up with the speed at which the cabin is rising?"
In the second captain's opinion, as long as I descend fast enough, the cabin decompression will not catch up with me.
"Now open the outflow valve manual switch and close the outflow valve controller." Xu Cang said loudly: "Open the wing anti-icing switch and shut down all components."
Due to the difference in the pressurization system of the 747, if it is on a 737, the pressurization mode selector should be turned to manual and the outflow valve should be closed.
"You want to shut down all the components? We can keep them. If the fault light comes on later, we will just ignore it. Why do we need to shut them down?" the second captain asked puzzled.
"The component will take away part of the wing anti-icing bleed air. Now we need to prioritize the effectiveness of wing anti-icing. After manually closing the outflow valve, we can reduce the rate of slow decompression to a minimum, so that even if the decompression occurs, it will be released at a low altitude and the impact will not be significant."
The logic of the 747 pressurization or cabin altitude adjustment is achieved through the outflow valve and components. That is, the components provide pressurized air to cope with the rarefied air pressure in the high-altitude environment, which is reflected in the cabin altitude being able to reduce the cabin altitude. However, the aircraft cannot be pressurized all the time. For example, when descending, the aircraft should actively release pressure, otherwise, in many cases, the cabin door cannot be opened due to the pressure difference after landing.
However, the aircraft's active decompression is strictly calculated by the computer in automatic mode. It is achieved by opening and closing the outflow valve, and the degree of opening and closing is used to release the pressurized gas in the cabin, thereby changing the cabin altitude.
At this time, Xu Cang used manual intervention to close all the outflow valves used to release the pressurized gas. Since there was still some pressurized gas left in the cabin at this moment, the cabin pressure was actually lower than that of the outside world.
However, even if all the outflow valves are closed, the cabin itself is not completely sealed, and the pressurized gas in the cabin will still escape to the outside of the aircraft due to the pressure difference, which causes the cabin altitude to continue to increase.
However, the escape of pressurized gas caused by the fine gaps in the cabin itself is small and slow, so compared with the rapid decompression caused by a malfunction, the artificial decompression set up by Xu Cang is also slow.
In Xu Cang's idea, he wanted to solve the problem of ice accumulation through this slowly formed pressure release time.
The second captain hesitated for only a moment, and then quickly accepted Xu Cang's opinion. Without even the captain in charge taking action, the second captain stood up slightly and opened the manual switch of the outflow valve, and then overrided the outflow valve to close it completely.
After confirming that the outflow valve was fully closed, the pilot in charge simultaneously opened the wing anti-ice valve and closed all components.
"Can wing anti-icing really melt the ice in a short time?" The second captain was worried. "Now the ice is not only seriously accumulated on the wings, but also on the horizontal stabilizer and elevator. What should we do if the wing anti-icing can't work on the elevator? Our altitude is very high. Theoretically, we can support it for seven to eight minutes. However, our aircraft speed is also increasing. The aircraft will soon exceed the speed limit. The fuselage structure of the aircraft cannot withstand long-term overspeeding."
Admittedly, the second captain did not know the exact airspeed at the moment, but one could tell with one's feet that the speed would continue to increase with this kind of continuous dive, and exceeding the speed limit was only a matter of time.
Brief overspeeding is usually harmless, but prolonged overspeeding can cause serious damage to the fuselage structure, and even mid-air disintegration is not impossible.
"Wing anti-icing certainly cannot melt such a large amount of ice in a short period of time, but the high-speed friction between the volcanic ash and the fuselage will not only accumulate electric charges but also generate a large amount of heat, which will help eliminate the ice on the fuselage."
The second captain was startled, and then he woke up as if from a dream. He didn't expect that there was such a connection here. How could he forget that friction generates heat? Even the friction with the air can generate a lot of heat, not to mention the friction with volcanic ash.
Xu Cang stretched out his left hand, touched the handle of the speed brake, and then slowly pulled it up: "However, we need to control the speed within a reasonable range."
According to Xu Cang's idea, he did hope that the plane could maintain a high speed, but the speed could not be too high, otherwise the problem of continuous speeding that the second captain just mentioned would occur, causing the fuselage structure to be overloaded.
Therefore, Xu Cang needs to use a speed brake to restrict the increase in speed.
"If we pull the speed brakes, will the altitude not be enough?" the second captain expressed his concerns.
The speed brake can indeed control the speed of the aircraft to a certain extent, but if the speed does not increase, it will also cause the aircraft to descend again. Originally, their aircraft had sufficient altitude, but after the speed brake was pulled, the descent rate increased again. It is hard to say whether it will be sufficient in the future.
"There is this problem!" Xu Cang said as the second pilot saw his finger actually touching the fuel release switch. In an instant, the second pilot's expression became interesting.
The 747 has the function of dumping fuel in the air, and when dumping fuel, the fuel will be atomized to minimize the harm of dumping fuel. However, even if the fuel is atomized, there will still be some damage to the area below, but it is just a matter of degree. Therefore, for the operation of dumping fuel in the air, a special dumping area is set up in civil aviation. That is, under normal circumstances, aerial dumping can only be carried out in the specified dumping area, and the area where the aircraft is now is definitely not in the dumping area.
However, even if the fuel was not being dumped in the fuel dumping area, the second captain was not actually that worried. After all, the rule was not rigid and for the safety of the aircraft and the people on board, it was acceptable to break some regulations appropriately.
However, the second captain wanted to know the meaning of Xu Cang's action of dumping fuel in the air.
The captain in charge obviously noticed Xu Cang's action and pointed it out without saying anything: "Xu Cang, are you going to release fuel?"
"The plane is too heavy. The speed brakes are pulled. If we want to control the descent rate, we naturally need to release some fuel to make the plane lighter." Xu Cang said calmly.
"Are you really just trying to reduce the descent rate?" the second captain shouted.
Xu Cang did not hide it: "Volcanic ash brings too many problems, so many that the slightest negligence will result in the destruction of the plane and the death of people, so I think it is better to end the flight as soon as possible."
Even Xu Cang felt exhausted at this moment. He had indeed dealt with many special situations, all kinds of them, but most of them were limited to one part. Although this did not affect the difficulty of handling the special situation, Xu Cang could focus his mind on the failure of a certain part.
But the complexity of this volcanic ash incident was beyond Xu Cang's expectations, not to mention how difficult it was. As long as you were in the volcanic ash, there would be countless troubles. Before you could deal with one, another would pop up. There was no end at all.
Admittedly, up to now, Xu Cang still has some corresponding countermeasures, but this does not mean that Xu Cang can continue to deal with it in this way in the future.
He was tired of it and began to fear that he would hit the ceiling of his mental strength in this incident. Xu Cang was not afraid of difficult special situations, just like the previous 1566 elevator centering device had a problem, and after the second pull-up, the plane was almost destroyed and everyone on board died at an extremely exaggerated pitch angle.
The difficulty of that special situation was unprecedented, but for Xu Cang, it was far less tormenting than this time. Because, in the 1566 special situation, there was not even five minutes from the emergence of the real crisis to the landing, and it was limited to manipulation, and there were no other factors to affect Xu Cang.
Xu Cang had unlimited space to display his outstanding technical ability to deal with special situations. But this time was different. Failures of different systems came one after another, and each one was very difficult. Xu Cang was not the kind of person with vigorous spirit. Under such torture, Xu Cang felt that he had reached his limit.
Since the time has come to make a decision, why doesn't Xu Cang fight for himself?
"Are you going to make an emergency landing in the Pacific Ocean?" the second captain suddenly shouted.
Yes, the rate of descent can be controlled by dumping fuel, which is a reasonable explanation. However, the inspection of forced landing on water also requires the first dumping of fuel in the air to reduce the speed during the forced landing.
Because the flight was extremely long, the 747 carried a large amount of fuel, so there was a lot of room for weight reduction. Moreover, forced landing is inherently dangerous, and it is common for the fuselage to break and cause an explosion. Therefore, the fuel was reduced to a reasonable level before the forced landing, so that even in the event of an accident after the forced landing, there would not be a too violent explosion.
It was because he knew that there was a step for forced landing on water that the second captain realized something was wrong when Xu Cang started to release fuel in the air. And the fact was that Xu Cang wanted to make an emergency landing on the sea.
Xu Cang hummed, looking quite calm: "Although theoretically the concentration of volcanic ash will be lower in a low-altitude environment, it cannot fall on the land airport, and hovering at low altitude is just a waste of our energy. Moreover, volcanic ash at low altitude does not really mean that there is no problem. If you hesitate to make a decision, you will suffer from the chaos! Are you willing to believe me? I will make this emergency landing at sea!"
The responsible captain and the second captain looked at each other immediately, both of them looked nervous. My goodness, Xu Cang was risking everything, planning to turn to approach directly after this dive, this courage was really a millionaire!
Even though they knew there was no chance at the land airport, and even though the proposal for an emergency landing at sea was proposed by the captain in charge, when it really came to this moment, both captains remained silent, and no one dared to express an opinion.
The decision was too heavy, so heavy that it made the two of them feel overwhelmed.
This continued for more than a minute. Suddenly, the steering wheel, which had been vibrating continuously, began to vibrate less. After more than ten seconds, the steering wheel actually calmed down.
Xu Cang gently moved the steering wheel, and could feel the force of the stick being fed back from the steering wheel. Since the plane was flying very fast at this time, the force of the stick was still relatively heavy, and Xu Cang's action only slightly moved it.
"Okay, the rudder effect is restored?" The captain in charge was overjoyed when he saw Xu Cang's action. He never expected that the ice accumulation would be eliminated so quickly, and there was a noticeable effect in less than two minutes.
However , at this moment, the plane was rubbing against the volcanic ash at a relative speed of more than 600 kilometers per hour, and the heat energy generated was quite huge. Even if a large part of it would be dissipated with the airflow, the remaining energy was enough to melt the ice.
After the rudder effect was restored, Xu Cang slightly adjusted the trim and retracted the speed brake. In such a high-speed environment, raising the speed brake would still put some burden on the fuselage structure, so it was better not to use it if possible.
"Do you want to turn off the wing anti-ice and turn on the component?" Seeing that the rudder effect was restored and the stall stick shaker warning was not triggered, it meant that there was no problem with the angle of attack at this moment. The second captain thought about restoring the pressurization of the aircraft.
Xu Cang glanced at the cockpit altimeter. At this moment, the cabin altitude was close to nine thousand feet, and there were still more than a thousand feet before decompression. However, due to the dual effects of slow decompression and the rapid drop in aircraft altitude, the actual rate of ascent of the cabin altitude was less than five hundred feet per minute, which meant that there were still more than two minutes before decompression.
At this moment, the pressure altitude of the aircraft was already below 20,000 feet, and the descent rate was close to 5,000 feet per minute. Xu Cang glanced at the outside temperature display and immediately shook his head: "No! It's still icing outside, wait a little longer!"
After saying this, Xu Cang saw that the situation was already decided and an emergency landing at sea was imminent, so he immediately said to the captain in charge: "Cabin broadcast, the plane is stuck and an emergency landing at sea will be carried out in ten minutes. Prepare the cabin."
When talking about this, Xu Cang did not even ask the two captains for further opinions on whether to make an emergency landing at sea. Anyway, Xu Cang had made up his mind. What he had to do was to tell the two of them his thoughts instead of asking for their consent.
In most cases, Xu Cang is not a strong person, but when it comes to special flight situations, Xu Cang is a man who has the final say!
The captain in charge and the second pilot looked at each other. After about five or six seconds of silence, the captain in charge suddenly sighed. He said nothing more, but switched the transmitter of the communication panel to the PA position and immediately used the passenger broadcast to convey the decision to make an emergency landing at sea.
During this period, the second captain did not express any objection, which meant that he also accepted Xu Cang's suggestion of an emergency landing at sea.
Landing at sea was indeed a risky move, but if you think about it carefully, it was their only way out. Moreover, the most important thing was that Xu Cang had experience in landing at sea, and it was a successful experience, which was undoubtedly a huge advantage.
"Xu Cang, how confident are you that you can make an emergency landing at sea?" asked the captain in charge.
Xu Cang shook his head: "No one is sure about making an emergency landing at sea. Yes, I succeeded once before, but there was a huge amount of chance involved. Even if I were to do it again, I would still not be sure. Moreover, it is night time now and I cannot see the situation on the sea surface clearly. This is not good news. However, we can roughly determine the direction of entry into the water by the wind direction, and then make precise corrections before entering the water."
An emergency landing at sea requires following the waves into the water, but now the sky is covered with volcanic ash, without even the little starlight and moonlight left. Xu Cang can only rely on the aircraft lights to make corrections at the last minute.
Although Xu Cang said this, the second captain was relieved. If Xu Cang agreed to it, he would be worried, because as Xu Cang said, the difficulty of forced landing at sea is too high, and it is not that experience can guarantee the success rate. Frank words are indeed more convincing.
At least Xu Cang made his own judgment and response to the possible problems he might encounter.
While the cockpit was discussing the emergency landing at sea, the outside temperature rose to ten degrees after the plane broke through the altitude of 12,000 feet. This was the node that Xu Cang was waiting for.
At this moment, the cabin altitude of the plane was approaching 10,000 feet!
"Turn off the wing anti-ice, keep the engine anti-ice, open the components, and turn off the outflow valve manual switch." While giving the command, Xu Cang also slowly moved the stick to reduce the aircraft's descent rate.
Temperatures above ten degrees are generally considered non-icing conditions, and as the altitude continues to decrease, the temperature will continue to rise. So even though there is still some rain now, there will be no ice accumulation at future flight altitudes, so wing anti-icing is naturally not necessary.
However, just in case, Xu Cang still retained the engine anti-icing. After all, the engine anti-icing consumes little bleed air and will not cause problems with the bleed air components.
The captain in charge had been waiting for a long time, and immediately followed Xu Cang's instructions to turn off the wing anti-icing, open the components, and finally switch the pressurization mode to automatic.
Just as the captain in charge was following Xu Cang's instructions, the PFD airspeed indicator, which had reached an indicated airspeed of 350 knots in the overspeed range, suddenly jumped to 320 knots, and then the overspeed warning that had been sounding disappeared.
Xu Cang was also startled by this change. After a moment's reaction, Xu Cang finally smiled. It seems that there are some other benefits to high-speed diving, such as blowing away the obstruction in the pitot tube.
"The airspeed seems to be normal?" The second captain came over, feeling a little excited. If we continue to fly down with an unreliable airspeed, it's not that we can't fly, but it will cause a lot of trouble. Now that the airspeed has returned to normal, it's a lot less trouble.
"Notify Jakarta control that we are about to make an emergency landing . Ask them to pay attention to the location of our ELT signal." Xu Cang instructed the captain in charge.
ELT is an emergency locator, which can continuously send out distress signals so that rescuers can provide their location. Xu Cang is not very confident in Indonesia's maritime rescue capabilities, so he needs to give it a heads-up.
"Okay!" the captain in charge agreed immediately.
At this moment, the cabin was in chaos. Passengers were hurriedly putting on life jackets under the instructions of the flight attendants, and Song Xinyang's face was extremely gloomy. How could he be so unlucky to have an emergency landing at sea?
At an altitude of 5,000 feet, the aircraft's flaps have been placed in the 30th position, which is the flap configuration for an emergency landing at sea.
Next, the ground proximity gear override switch and the ground proximity terrain override switch are placed in the override position, all component controllers are closed, the outflow valve manual switch is placed in the open position again, and all outflow valves are manually closed.
The purpose of closing the outflow valve this time is completely different from the previous one. Previously, it was to allow the pressurized air in the cabin to escape as slowly as possible, but this time, closing the outflow valve is to seal the aircraft so that seawater will not seep into the cabin too quickly after falling into the water, buying more time for evacuation.
At an altitude of two thousand feet, Xu Cang could already vaguely see some spots of light reflected on the sea surface. However, covered by volcanic ash, the sky could only let in some silver light from the gaps, so the spots of light merely existed and had no spatial reference significance.
Of course, being able to see the shimmering waves on the sea meant that the concentration of volcanic ash was already relatively low at this altitude. Therefore, Xu Cang felt a little relieved and pushed up the throttle of the No. 2 engine, which had not had any problems, in order to reduce the aircraft's high descent rate.
Then, Xu Cang tentatively pushed the throttle of the No. 1 and No. 3 engines. These two engines had surged before, of course, because of the volcanic ash. However, in the previous dive environment, Xu Cang had always kept the two engines at slow speed, which was considered a fairly good protection.
At this moment, the concentration of volcanic ash around the aircraft was greatly reduced, and the No. 1 and No. 3 engines began to slowly increase their thrust as the thrust handles were pushed forward. Xu Cang's idea was very simple, if only these two engines could provide even half of the reduced thrust, it would be quite enough for him.
However, what made Xu Cang happy enough was that there was no obvious abnormality when the two engines were increased to a thrust level slightly lower than that of the No. 2 engine. The vibration value was just a little higher than that of the No. 2 engine, but it was also within the limit.
First, the Pitot tube blockage was eliminated, and then the No. 1 and No. 3 engines, which were originally surging, remained strong. After all, despite the previous setbacks, it was finally good news that there were two good things happening at once.
At an altitude of one thousand feet, Xu Cang had already turned the plane's flight direction to the downwind side. At the same time, according to the descent rate, the plane would enter the water in more than a minute. Xu Cang gave his final instructions: "I will enter the water at an attitude of ten to twelve degrees. After entering the water, all fuel control switches will be turned off, all engine fire switches will be pulled out and turned to the stop position and held for more than one second, and finally, the slide and life raft will be deployed to evacuate the plane. Got it?"
Prior to this, Xu Cang had already turned off the air fuel dumping. Although he had planned to make an emergency landing at sea, Xu Cang did not push himself to the point of burning his boats, and he had exposed the amount of fuel for nearly an hour. Therefore, after entering the water, the fuel control switch and the fire alarm switch must all be operated to prevent fire and explosion.
The captain in charge was sure there would be no problem, and he nodded immediately: "Leave everything to me!"
"Yeah!" Xu Cang nodded and looked at the wind direction and speed. Fortunately, the wind direction and speed here were very stable, and the plane was already below one thousand feet at this moment. Even if it went further down, the wind direction and speed should not change much.
It is quite rare for low-altitude wind direction and speed to change suddenly like the one encountered in 1566.
He opened and closed his five fingers again. To be honest, even though he had succeeded once, Xu Cang was still quite nervous. Moreover, from a practical point of view, today's forced landing at sea was more difficult than the forced landing near the coast of Qizhou in 1566.
First of all, the light was dimmer this time, and because it was far away from the coast, the sea waves were stronger here. If we were not careful, the fuselage of the plane would break.
Although Xu Cang had taken the initiative to take this flight in order to demonstrate his technical abilities, if Xu Cang had known in advance that he would have to deal with such a special situation, he would not have come no matter what.
At an altitude of 500 feet, the captain in charge made a final announcement to passengers, reminding them to be prepared for collision avoidance.
Two hundred feet high!
At this altitude, the powerful landing lights could already illuminate the turbulent sea surface, but it was quite unclear. Xu Cang knew that the moment of deciding the outcome was approaching, and even the responsible captain and the second captain couldn't help but hold their breath.
Everyone in the cabin lowered their heads and hugged their legs in a collision-proof posture, while Song Xinyang's breathing was extremely rapid. He knew that the next ten seconds would mean the difference between life and death.
One hundred feet high!
At this moment, even someone as calm as Xu Cang was concentrating his mind, staring outside, waiting for the moment when the landing lights would shine on the sea so that he could make the final corrections.
This time is very short, he must react at the first moment and make the most correct operation.
But at this tense moment when everything depended on one critical moment, Xu Cang only felt something gently bumping his cheek, and then it was like a drop of water bursting, leaving some water stains on Xu Cang's face.
If it were someone else, they would have been holding their breath and concentrating, so how could they care about the water droplets? Perhaps it was the water droplets condensed from the air conditioning system in the cockpit, which was not uncommon.
However, Xu Cang was such a sharp person that his first thought was not the condensation droplets in the air-conditioning system. Instead, he moved his gaze from the front of the plane to the corner of the right front windshield, the corner where water was leaking before.
Since the water seepage problem was discovered, it was followed by a series of problems, and then the forced landing at sea, so Xu Cang has not had the energy to deal with this problem.
Of course, even if he had the energy, he couldn't solve this problem. Many aircraft failures are simply unsolvable due to conditions, especially hardware problems.
Faults can usually only be isolated to prevent them from further endangering the flight. In Xu Cang's memory, there seemed to be no targeted solution to the problem of water seepage due to poor windshield sealing. At most, the windshield heating was turned off to prevent water stains from contacting the heating wire in the windshield and causing a short circuit.
In fact, Xu Cang had a doubt when he found this problem. Generally speaking, such a low-level problem as the windshield not being sealed tightly would not happen.
Since this problem has occurred, it must be caused by other problems.
If an intact windshield will basically not cause water leakage, can we say that the windshield that is leaking water actually has problems?
Xu Cang could understand this logic, because in the previous flight of volcanic ash, the induction of external electric charges and the heating wire in the windshield would cause the appearance of a very obvious windshield arc.
In most cases, this type of arc is not a problem, but if the arc is too dense and severe, it will have some negative impact on the windshield.
For example, the crack of the outer windshield may not necessarily be caused by a large volcanic rock impact, but may also be the product of the windshield overheating. So, since the outer glass may have problems under the influence of the windshield arc, does it mean that the inner windshield has problems, and then the problem of water seepage due to poor sealing occurs in rainy weather?
However, according to the previous visual inspection, there is no problem with the inner windshield, which means that the problem with the inner windshield is in a very hidden corner, such as...
Xu Cang turned on the side map light without hesitation, and in an instant, the cockpit was bright.
Such behavior shocked the extremely nervous pilot in charge. The light in the cockpit was too bright and it would affect the vision outside. They were about to enter the water, so what was Xu Cang doing?
But before the captain in charge had the chance to ask, Xu Cang discovered under sufficient light that there was an extremely tiny crack in the lower right corner of the windshield where water was leaking.
Xu Cang's heart almost stopped at this moment. He stopped hesitating and stepped on the accelerators of all three engines.
Go-around! Can’t land!
Due to the low altitude, the thrust change of the turbofan engine was slightly delayed, and the weight of the 747 was quite large. Even with almost full throttle, the belly of the aircraft still hit the top of the waves. However, under the powerful thrust of the three Pratt & Whitney 4056 engines, this behemoth soared into the sky after creating a huge splash and disappeared into the dust.
The captain in charge did not react for a moment to Xu Cang's go-around action. The atmosphere had been set high and the desperate words had been spoken. How could he retreat at the critical moment?
However, after a very brief moment of shock, the captain still fulfilled his duty and retracted the flaps to 15. Since it was an emergency landing at sea, the landing gear was already in the up position and did not need to be retracted.
After the action was completed, the responsible captain was about to question the culprit, but Xu Cang pointed to the corner of the right front windshield with lingering fear: "Take a good look!"
"What?" The captain in charge turned his body and got close to the right front corner of the windshield. He gasped, and found that there was a thin crack in the corner.
This showed that the inner windshield had actually been damaged. If the car had rashly entered the water just now, the right front windshield would have shattered under the impact of the waves, and the seawater would have poured back in. Not to mention the people in the passenger cabin, the three people in the cockpit would have been killed for sure.
"We're almost done for!" Even though they had already taken off again, Xu Cang's heart was still pounding. It was just the last few dozen feet. If they had reacted a little slower, they would have been drowning in the sea and waiting to die.
The captain in charge's face was as pale as gold paper. He was actually angry at Xu Cang's retreat at the critical moment of battle. He didn't expect that Xu Cang was so observant and saved their lives at the gates of hell.
However, after the initial ecstasy of surviving the disaster, the captain had an idea in his mind. Now that the windshield had problems and an emergency landing at sea was no longer possible, didn't that mean another way out was blocked?
The Soekarno-Hatta Airport and Changi International Airport on the way are no longer reliable, and now the desperate emergency landing at sea is a dead end. Is it really like there is no way up to heaven and no way down to earth?
The captain in charge silently turned his head and looked at Xu Cang. At this moment, Xu Cang, who was like a god and always able to find a chance of survival, also showed a look of confusion.
Yes! It doesn’t work on land, and it doesn’t work on sea, so what should we do?
There came a moment when even Xu Cang could no longer see the road ahead!